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On Thursday, November 29, 2018, CNN announced that it had severed ties with Temple University Professor and CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill over a speech he gave in support of Palestinian human rights at the United Nations a day earlier.

Professor Hill addressed the UN on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, drawing attention to the continued human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Professor Hill has been vilified, defamed, and falsely accused of harboring hateful views. His words were distorted by pro-Israel groups seeking to undermine his call for one state with equal rights for all.

In his defense of the Palestinian people, Professor Hill did not call anyone to violence, nor did he call for the destruction of Israel. His legitimate criticism of Israeli apartheid policies, which include rights and privileges afforded only to Jewish citizens of Israel, has been unfairly conflated with anti-Semitism, which is a well-worn tactic used by pro-Israel activists to smear their opponents.

Professor Hill has been a tireless champion of human rights and justice for all people, and has always denounced all forms of hate and racism. On Thursday, he reiterated his position in a series of tweets, writing, “I do not support anti-Semitism, killing Jewish people, or any of the other things attributed to my speech. I have spent my life fighting these things.”

CNN’s decision to dismiss one of its most popular commentators based on his principled stance against the oppression of Palestinians is blatant censorship. It’s hypocritical considering that one of its contributors is Rick Santorum whose hateful speech against Palestinians includes the denial of their existence. Another regular contributor, Alan Dershowitz, has a history of demonizing Palestinians and supported Israel’s use of torture against them. And yet, CNN chose to fire one of its few contributors of color.

The silencing of voices conducive to the free exchange of ideas is dangerous. It is not befitting a media outlet that prides itself on objectivity to stifle a critical viewpoint—much less one that is becoming increasingly mainstream.

On Wednesday, Marc Lamont Hill, a political commentator on CNN, delivered a speech to the United Nations in support of the Palestinian people. He advocated for their human rights, outlined how Israel denies Palestinians their basic liberties, and asked the international community to ‘commit to political action’.

The next day — under pressure from right-wing leaders and the Jewish establishment — CNN fired him.

This news is appalling. We are demanding that CNN reinstate Marc Lamont Hill because advocating for Palestinian rights should NOT be a fireable offense. In supporting Palestinian freedom, Marc Lamont-Hill was in no way being anti-semitic.

Marc Lamont Hill has spent much of his life fighting against racism and oppression in America. In a tweet responding to accusations against him, he said “I support Palestinian freedom. I support Palestinian self-determination. I am deeply critical of Israeli policy and practice. I do not support anti-Semitism, killing Jewish people, or any of the other things attributed to my speech. I have spent my life fighting these things”.

Especially in the Trump Era, it is dangerous to link advocating for Palestinian rights to anti-semitism. It distracts from real threats to Jewish community — the rise of white nationalism.

Unfortunately, the ADL already vilified Marc Lamont Hill for his criticism of Israeli policy. Once again we are seeing the American Jewish establishment censor conversations about Palestinian rights by falsely claiming antisemitism, and it is setting a terrifying precedent.

Help provide a Maia Project water filter from the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) to serve clean drinking water to 3,250 students of two schools and their families in Rafah. This is a joint project of Congregation Shaarei Shamayim, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Jewish Voice for Peace – Madison, and Madison-Rafah Sister City Project.

The existential threat facing UNRWA is deliberate, and so are the dire consequences for the 5.3 million registered refugees it serves. President Donald Trump and his Middle East Team headed by advisor, Jared Kushner, have latched onto the idea that humanitarian relief may be used as leverage to force the Palestinian leadership back to a negotiating table set by Israel. Leaked details of the Kushner-crafted peace plan indicate that it is nothing more than a souped up, donor-infused version of the status quo that Israel seeks to have legitimated with the signature of President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader has infuriated the Administration by refusing to engage with it on these terms and so the Administration—along with the Republican-controlled Congress—has been tightening the financial noose around Palestinians.

The idea of weaponizing humanitarian assistance provided to Palestinians is not new but it has never before found the currency it now has in the White House. Of late, right-wing think tanks, pro-“Greater Israel” Washington lobby groups and the “no daylight between Israel and the U.S.” politicians have been peddling the fiction that humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees has been growing by leaps and bonds. They argue that aid money that maintains the camp infrastructure and enables the provision of essential services and work opportunities perpetuates refugeehood.

Of course, no Palestinian, or any other person for that matter, chooses to live as a stateless person in the squalor of a refugee camp dependent on food aid. The plight of Palestinian refugees is a result of a concerted effort by pre-state Zionist leaders and successive Israeli governments to avoid reaching a political solution based on international law and precedent. One need only look back on the remarks of Abba Eban, Israel’s representative to the UN, during the debate over whether the UN ought to accept Israel’s twice-rejected application for UN membership. Eban, though loathe to definitively state that Israel would permit the return of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees to their homes, promised that Israel would take no action “inconsistent with the resolutions of the [UN General] Assembly and the Security Council.” Furthermore, he stated that the refugee issue could only be solved within the United Nations and that acceptance of Israel as a member would make it easier to reach the desired political solution. He argued, however, that the timing for refugee return was premature; a peace agreement between Israel and the Arab states was required first so that borders could be established and repatriation could be implemented.

The Trump administration has ramped up its attacks on immigrants, separating children from their parents when crossing the border with no clear plan of reunifying them. The trauma and harm this is causing these families is terrible.

Across the US, people have and continue to come together, rally, and organize against these brutal attacks and to fight for something better.

Join together at Library Mall on the UW Madison campus for a speak-out and rally against these attacks, and for safety for all immigrants, refugees, and migrants.

Donald Trump and his administration are cruelly separating children from their families. But we won’t allow it to continue. On June 30, we’re rallying in Washington, D.C., and around the country to tell Donald Trump and his administration to stop separating kids from their parents!

Join us on June 30 to send a clear message to Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress: Families Belong Together!

This weekend is the Presbyterian Church’s biannual General Assembly. Among the many social justice issues they will address is a resolution calling on real estate giant RE/MAX to stop facilitating property sales in illegal Israeli settlements.

In 2016, right before the last Presbyterian Church General Assembly, RE/MAX founder and then-CEO Dave Liniger announced that the company would stop receiving revenues from settlement properties. But they continue to allow their Israeli franchise to rent and sell settlement houses, and they continue to include settlement properties in their global database. With your help, this time we will succeed in getting RE/MAX to fully extricate themselves from Israel’s settlement enterprise. Add your name to the letter we are sending to current CEO Adam Contos at this year’s General Assembly!

There is no question about the illegality of Israeli settlements. They violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says that an occupying power may not move its people onto the land it is occupying. Numerous UN resolutions have been passed calling for Israel to stop settlement construction. Numerous reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others have been published citing the direct role settlements play in human rights abuses against Palestinians and calling on companies like RE/MAX to immediately cease all settlement business.

We have been protesting RE/MAX’s involvement in Israeli crimes since 2014. We have held rallies outside RE/MAX offices and at the RE/MAX, LLC headquarters in Denver. We have disrupted RE/MAX conventions and shareholder meetings. We know we are close to a win. Now, it is time for the final push. Join our letter to RE/MAX, LLC telling them to immediately remove settlement listings from their global database and end all complicity in Jewish-only Israeli settlements.

Towards freedom and equality in Palestine,
Ariel and everyone at CODEPINK

This week, Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are marking the 51st year of the brutal Israeli military occupation. As the resistance to Israel’s oppression continues across Palestine, we have a responsibility to keep pushing to end the US policies that have allowed Israel to act with such impunity for so long.

Today we are launching a new website, Cities for Palestine, to encourage people to focus on opportunities to organize for Palestinian rights in our cities, towns, counties, and states that will build our collective power upwards to impact policy.

Municipal campaigns focus on engaging directly with local policy makers, building capacity and activating the power of everyday people. This work will reverberate to help move decision-makers at local, state, and federal levels. Ultimately, we move closer and closer to changing the US policies that enable Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights.

Why the municipal campaigns approach? Because we know it works. From the South African anti-apartheid movement to environmental justice campaigns that focus on divestment from fossil fuels to prison abolition, municipal campaigns are a tried-and-true strategy that prove the effectiveness of organizing locally to impact national and global causes.

citiesforpalestine.org lays out eight ideas to help you start thinking about what campaign would work for your community. These ideas are intended to be implemented as part of an overall commitment by communities to invest in freedom while divesting from injustice. That means understanding the connections between local demands related to the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality and the demands of Black, brown, and Indigenous communities.